Collaborating to develop research data management services and collections

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Library, like many other academic and research institution libraries in Australia, has been collaborating with a range of academic and service provider partners to develop a range of research data management services and collections. Three main strategies are being employed and an overview of process, infrastructure, usage and benefits is provided of each of these service aspects. The development of processes and infrastructure to facilitate the strategic identification and management of QUT developed datasets has been a major focus. A number of Australian National Data Service (ANDS) sponsored projects - including Seeding the Commons; Metadata Hub / Store; Data Capture and Gold Standard Record Exemplars have / will provide QUT with a data registry system, linkages to storage, processes for identifying and describing datasets, and a degree of academic awareness. QUT supports open access and has established a culture for making its research outputs available via the QUT ePrints institutional repository. Incorporating open access research datasets into the library collections is an equally important aspect of facilitating the adoption of data-centric eresearch methods. Some datasets are available commercially, and the library has collaborated with QUT researchers, in the QUT Business School especially strongly, to identify and procure a rapidly growing range of financial datasets to support research. The library undertakes licensing and uses the Library Resource Allocation to pay for the subscriptions. It is a new area of collection development for with much to be learned. The final strategy discussed is the library acting as “data broker”. QUT Library has been working with researchers to identify these datasets and undertake the licensing, payment and access as a centrally supported service on behalf of researchers.

Summarization of association rules in multi-tier granule mining

It is a big challenge to find useful associations in databases for user specific needs. The essential issue is how to provide efficient methods for describing meaningful associations and pruning false discoveries or meaningless ones. One major obstacle is the overwhelmingly large volume of discovered patterns. This paper discusses an alternative approach called multi-tier granule mining to improve frequent association mining. Rather than using patterns, it uses granules to represent knowledge implicitly contained in databases. It also uses multi-tier structures and association mappings to represent association rules in terms of granules. Consequently, association rules can be quickly accessed and meaningless association rules can be justified according to the association mappings. Moreover, the proposed structure is also an precise compression of patterns which can restore the original supports. The experimental results shows that the proposed approach is promising.

Empirical Support For an Item and Relational Conceptualization of Sponsorship

This paper outlines how commercial sponsorship can be conceptualized using an item and relational information framework, and supports this with empirical data. The model presented allows for predictions about consumer memory for sponsorship information, and hence has both theoretical and practical value. Data are reported which show that sponsors considered congruent with an event benefit by providing consumers with sponsor-specific item information, while sponsors considered incongruent benefit by providing sponsor-event relational information. Overall the provision of sponsor-event relational information is shown to result in superior memory to the provision of sponsor-specific item information, which is superior to basic sponsor mentions.

Empirical support for an item and relational conceptualization of sponsorship

This paper outlines how commercial sponsorship can be conceptualized using an item and relational information framework, and supports this with empirical data. The model presented allows for predictions about consumer memory for sponsorship information, and hence has both theoretical and practical value. Data are reported which show that sponsors considered congruent with an event benefit by providing consumers with sponsor-specific item information, while sponsors considered incongruent benefit by providing sponsor-event relational information. Overall the provision of sponsor-event relational information is shown to result in superior memory to the provision of sponsor-specific item information, which is superior to basic sponsor mentions.

A comparative study of different porous amorphous silica minerals supported TiO2 catalysts

Three porous amorphous silica minerals, including diatomite, opal and porous precipitated SiO2wereadopted to prepare supported TiO2catalysts by hydrolysis–deposition method. The prepared compoundmaterials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fouriertransform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS). Through morphology and physical chemistry properties of the resultingTiO2/amorphous SiO2catalysts, it was proposed that the nature of silica supports could affect the particlesize and the crystal form of TiO2and then further influence the photocatalytic property of TiO2/amorphousSiO2catalysts. The catalytic properties of these porous amorphous silica supported photocatalysts(TiO2/SiO2) were investigated by UV-assisted degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB). Compared with pureTiO2(P25) and the other two TiO2/amorphous SiO2catalysts, TiO2/diatomite photocatalyst exhibits bet-ter catalytic performance at different calcined temperatures, the decoloration rate of which can be upto over 85% even at a relatively low calcined temperature. The TiO2/diatomite photocatalyst possessesmixed-phase TiO2with relatively smaller particles size, which might be responsible for higher photo-catalytic activity. Moreover, the stable and much inerter porous microstructure of diatomite could beanother key factor in improving its activity.

Construction Prices : the Market Effect

Teachers of construction economics and estimating have for a long time recognised that there is more to construction pricing than detailed calculation of costs (to the contractor). We always get to the point where we have to say "of course, experience or familiarity of the market is very important and this needs judgement, intuition, etc". Quite how important is the matter in construction pricing is not known and we tend to trivialise its effect. If judgement of the market has a minimal effect, little harm would be done, but if it is really important then some quite serious consequences arise which go well beyond the teaching environment. Major areas of concern for the quantity surveyor are in cost modelling and cost planning - neither of which pay any significant attention to the market effect. There are currently two schools of thought about the market effect issue. The first school is prepared to ignore possible effects until more is known. This may be called the pragmatic school. The second school exists solely to criticise the first school. We will call this the antagonistic school. Neither the pragmatic nor the antagonistic schools seem to be particularly keen to resolve the issue one way or the other. The founder and leader of the antagonistic school is Brian Fine whose paper in 1974 is still the basic text on the subject, and in which he coined the term 'socially acceptable' price to describe what we now recognise as the market effect. Mr Fine's argument was then, and is since, that the uncertainty surrounding the contractors' costing and cost estimating process is such that the uncertainty surrounding the contractors' cost that it logically leads to a market-orientated pricing approach. Very little factual evidence, however, seems to be available to support these arguments in any conclusive manner. A further, and more important point for the pragmatic school, is that, even if the market effect is as important as Mr Fine believes, there are no indications of how it can be measured, evaluated or predicted. Since 1974 evidence has been accumulating which tends to reinforce the antagonists' view. A review of the literature covering both contractors' and designers' estimates found many references to the use of value judgements in construction pricing (Ashworth & Skitmore, 1985), which supports the antagonistic view in implying the existence of uncertainty overload. The most convincing evidence emerged quite by accident in some research we recently completed with practicing quantity surveyors in estimating accuracy (Skitmore, 1985). In addition to demonstrating that individual quantity surveyors and certain types of buildings had significant effect on estimating accuracy, one surprise result was that only a very small amount of information was used by the most expert surveyors for relatively very accurate estimates. Only the type and size of building, it seemed, was really relevant in determining accuracy. More detailed information about the buildings' specification, and even a sight to the drawings, did not significantly improve their accuracy level. This seemed to offer clear evidence that the constructional aspects of the project were largely irrelevant and that the expert surveyors were somehow tuning in to the market price of the building. The obvious next step is to feed our expert surveyors with more relevant 'market' information in order to assess its effect. The problem with this is that our experts do not seem able to verbalise their requirements in this respect - a common occurrence in research of this nature. The lack of research into the nature of market effects on prices also means the literature provides little of benefit. Hence the need for this study. It was felt that a clearer picture of the nature of construction markets would be obtained in an environment where free enterprise was a truly ideological force. For this reason, the United States of America was chosen for the next stage of our investigations. Several people were interviewed in an informal and unstructured manner to elicit their views on the action of market forces on construction prices. Although a small number of people were involved, they were thought to be reasonably representative of knowledge in construction pricing. They were also very well able to articulate their views. Our initial reaction to the interviews was that our USA subjects held very close views to those held in the UK. However, detailed analysis revealed the existence of remarkably clear and consistent insights that would not have been obtained in the UK. Further evidence was also obtained from literature relating to the subject and some of the interviewees very kindly expanded on their views in later postal correspondence. We have now analysed all the evidence received and, although a great deal is of an anecdotal nature, we feel that our findings enable at least the basic nature of the subject to be understood and that the factors and their interrelationships can now be examined more formally in relation to construction price levels. I must express my gratitude to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' Educational Trust and the University of Salford's Department of Civil Engineering for collectively funding this study. My sincere thanks also go to our American participants who freely gave their time and valuable knowledge to us in our enquiries. Finally, I must record my thanks to Tim and Anne for their remarkable ability to produce an intelligible typescript from my unintelligible writing.

The rise of birds and mammals: are microevolutionary processes sufficient for macroevolution?

It is a basis of darwinian evolution that the microevolutionary mechanisms that can be studied in the present are sufficient to account for macroevolution. However, this idea needs to be tested explicitly, as highlighted here by the example of the superceding of dinosaurs and pterosaurs by birds and placental mammals that occurred near the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary approximately 65 million years ago. A major problem for testing the sufficiency of microevolutionary processes is that independent ideas (such as the existence of an extraterrestrial impact, and the extinction of dinosaurs) were linked without the evidence for each idea being evaluated separately. Here, we suggest and discuss five testable models for the times and divergences of modern mammals and birds. Determination of the model that best represents these events will enable the role of microevolutionary mechanisms to be evaluated. The question of the sufficiency of microevolutionary processes for macroevolution is solvable, and available evidence supports an important role for biological processes in the initial decline of dinosaurs and pterosaurs.

A catchment modelling approach integrating surface and groundwater processes, land use and distribution of nutrients : Elimbah Creek, southeast Queensland

As the world’s population is growing, so is the demand for agricultural products. However, natural nitrogen (N) fixation and phosphorus (P) availability cannot sustain the rising agricultural production, thus, the application of N and P fertilisers as additional nutrient sources is common. It is those anthropogenic activities that can contribute high amounts of organic and inorganic nutrients to both surface and groundwaters resulting in degradation of water quality and a possible reduction of aquatic life. In addition, runoff and sewage from urban and residential areas can contain high amounts of inorganic and organic nutrients which may also affect water quality. For example, blooms of the cyanobacterium Lyngbya majuscula along the coastline of southeast Queensland are an indicator of at least short term decreases of water quality. Although Australian catchments, including those with intensive forms of land use, show in general a low export of nutrients compared to North American and European catchments, certain land use practices may still have a detrimental effect on the coastal environment. Numerous studies are reported on nutrient cycling and associated processes on a catchment scale in the Northern Hemisphere. Comparable studies in Australia, in particular in subtropical regions are, however, limited and there is a paucity in the data, in particular for inorganic and organic forms of nitrogen and phosphorus; these nutrients are important limiting factors in surface waters to promote algal blooms. Therefore, the monitoring of N and P and understanding the sources and pathways of these nutrients within a catchment is important in coastal zone management. Although Australia is the driest continent, in subtropical regions such as southeast Queensland, rainfall patterns have a significant effect on runoff and thus the nutrient cycle at a catchment scale. Increasingly, these rainfall patterns are becoming variable. The monitoring of these climatic conditions and the hydrological response of agricultural catchments is therefore also important to reduce the anthropogenic effects on surface and groundwater quality. This study consists of an integrated hydrological–hydrochemical approach that assesses N and P in an environment with multiple land uses. The main aim is to determine the nutrient cycle within a representative coastal catchment in southeast Queensland, the Elimbah Creek catchment. In particular, the investigation confirms the influence associated with forestry and agriculture on N and P forms, sources, distribution and fate in the surface and groundwaters of this subtropical setting. In addition, the study determines whether N and P are subject to transport into the adjacent estuary and thus into the marine environment; also considered is the effect of local topography, soils and geology on N and P sources and distribution. The thesis is structured on four components individually reported. The first paper determines the controls of catchment settings and processes on stream water, riverbank sediment, and shallow groundwater N and P concentrations, in particular during the extended dry conditions that were encountered during the study. Temporal and spatial factors such as seasonal changes, soil character, land use and catchment morphology are considered as well as their effect on controls over distributions of N and P in surface waters and associated groundwater. A total number of 30 surface and 13 shallow groundwater sampling sites were established throughout the catchment to represent dominant soil types and the land use upstream of each sampling location. Sampling comprises five rounds and was conducted over one year between October 2008 and November 2009. Surface water and groundwater samples were analysed for all major dissolved inorganic forms of N and for total N. Phosphorus was determined in the form of dissolved reactive P (predominantly orthophosphate) and total P. In addition, extracts of stream bank sediments and soil grab samples were analysed for these N and P species. Findings show that major storm events, in particular after long periods of drought conditions, are the driving force of N cycling. This is expressed by higher inorganic N concentrations in the agricultural subcatchment compared to the forested subcatchment. Nitrate N is the dominant inorganic form of N in both the surface and groundwaters and values are significantly higher in the groundwaters. Concentrations in the surface water range from 0.03 to 0.34 mg N L..1; organic N concentrations are considerably higher (average range: 0.33 to 0.85 mg N L..1), in particular in the forested subcatchment. Average NO3-N in the groundwater has a range of 0.39 to 2.08 mg N L..1, and organic N averages between 0.07 and 0.3 mg N L..1. The stream bank sediments are dominated by organic N (range: 0.53 to 0.65 mg N L..1), and the dominant inorganic form of N is NH4-N with values ranging between 0.38 and 0.41 mg N L..1. Topography and soils, however, were not to have a significant effect on N and P concentrations in waters. Detectable phosphorus in the surface and groundwaters of the catchment is limited to several locations typically in the proximity of areas with intensive animal use; in soil and sediments, P is negligible. In the second paper, the stable isotopes of N (14N/15N) and H2O (16O/18O and 2H/H) in surface and groundwaters are used to identify sources of dissolved inorganic and organic N in these waters, and to determine their pathways within the catchment; specific emphasis is placed on the relation of forestry and agriculture. Forestry is predominantly concentrated in the northern subcatchment (Beerburrum Creek) while agriculture is mainly found in the southern subcatchment (Six Mile Creek). Results show that agriculture (horticulture, crops, grazing) is the main source of inorganic N in the surface waters of the agricultural subcatchment, and their isotopic signature shows a close link to evaporation processes that may occur during water storage in farm dams that are used for irrigation. Groundwaters are subject to denitrification processes that may result in reduced dissolved inorganic N concentrations. Soil organic matter delivers most of the inorganic N to the surface water in the forested subcatchment. Here, precipitation and subsequently runoff is the main source of the surface waters. Groundwater in this area is affected by agricultural processes. The findings also show that the catchment can attenuate the effects of anthropogenic land use on surface water quality. Riparian strips of natural remnant vegetation, commonly 50 to 100 m in width, act as buffer zones along the drainage lines in the catchment and remove inorganic N from the soil water before it enters the creek. These riparian buffer zones are common in most agricultural catchments of southeast Queensland and are indicated to reduce the impact of agriculture on stream water quality and subsequently on the estuary and marine environments. This reduction is expressed by a significant decrease in DIN concentrations from 1.6 mg N L..1 to 0.09 mg N L..1, and a decrease in the �15N signatures from upstream surface water locations downstream to the outlet of the agricultural subcatchment. Further testing is, however, necessary to confirm these processes. Most importantly, the amount of N that is transported to the adjacent estuary is shown to be negligible. The third and fourth components of the thesis use a hydrological catchment model approach to determine the water balance of the Elimbah Creek catchment. The model is then used to simulate the effects of land use on the water balance and nutrient loads of the study area. The tool that is used is the internationally widely applied Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Knowledge about the water cycle of a catchment is imperative in nutrient studies as processes such as rainfall, surface runoff, soil infiltration and routing of water through the drainage system are the driving forces of the catchment nutrient cycle. Long-term information about discharge volumes of the creeks and rivers do, however, not exist for a number of agricultural catchments in southeast Queensland, and such information is necessary to calibrate and validate numerical models. Therefore, a two-step modelling approach was used to calibrate and validate parameters values from a near-by gauged reference catchment as starting values for the ungauged Elimbah Creek catchment. Transposing monthly calibrated and validated parameter values from the reference catchment to the ungauged catchment significantly improved model performance showing that the hydrological model of the catchment of interest is a strong predictor of the water water balance. The model efficiency coefficient EF shows that 94% of the simulated discharge matches the observed flow whereas only 54% of the observed streamflow was simulated by the SWAT model prior to using the validated values from the reference catchment. In addition, the hydrological model confirmed that total surface runoff contributes the majority of flow to the surface water in the catchment (65%). Only a small proportion of the water in the creek is contributed by total base-flow (35%). This finding supports the results of the stable isotopes 16O/18O and 2H/H, which show the main source of water in the creeks is either from local precipitation or irrigation waters delivered by surface runoff; a contribution from the groundwater (baseflow) to the creeks could not be identified using 16O/18O and 2H/H. In addition, the SWAT model calculated that around 68% of the rainfall occurring in the catchment is lost through evapotranspiration reflecting the prevailing long-term drought conditions that were observed prior and during the study. Stream discharge from the forested subcatchment was an order of magnitude lower than discharge from the agricultural Six Mile Creek subcatchment. A change in land use from forestry to agriculture did not significantly change the catchment water balance, however, nutrient loads increased considerably. Conversely, a simulated change from agriculture to forestry resulted in a significant decrease of nitrogen loads. The findings of the thesis and the approach used are shown to be of value to catchment water quality monitoring on a wider scale, in particular the implications of mixed land use on nutrient forms, distributions and concentrations. The study confirms that in the tropics and subtropics the water balance is affected by extended dry periods and seasonal rainfall with intensive storm events. In particular, the comprehensive data set of inorganic and organic N and P forms in the surface and groundwaters of this subtropical setting acquired during the one year sampling program may be used in similar catchment hydrological studies where these detailed information is missing. Also, the study concludes that riparian buffer zones along the catchment drainage system attenuate the transport of nitrogen from agricultural sources in the surface water. Concentrations of N decreased from upstream to downstream locations and were negligible at the outlet of the catchment.

Incorporation of exogenous RGD peptide and inter-species blending as strategies for enhancing human corneal limbal epithelial cell growth on Bombyx mori silk fibroin membranes

While fibroin isolated from the cocoons of domesticated silkworm Bombyx mori supports growth of human corneal limbal epithelial (HLE) cells, the mechanism of cell attachment remains unclear. In the present study we sought to enhance the attachment of HLE cells to membranes of Bombyx mori silk fibroin (BMSF) through surface functionalization with an arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD)-containing peptide. Moreover, we have examined the response of HLE cells to BMSF when blended with the fibroin produced by a wild silkworm, Antheraea pernyi, which is known to contain RGD sequences within its primary structure. A procedure to isolate A. pernyi silk fibroin (APSF) from the cocoons was established, and blends of the two fibroins were prepared at five different BMSF/APSF ratios. In another experiment, BMSF surface was modified by binding chemically the GRGDSPC peptide using a water-soluble carbodiimide. Primary HLE were grown in the absence of serum on membranes made of BMSF, APSF, and their blends, as well as on RGD-modified BMSF. There was no statistically significant enhancing effect on the cell attachment due to the RGD presence. This suggests that the adhesion through RGD ligands may have a complex mechanism, and the investigated strategies are of limited value unless the factors contributing to this mechanism become better known.

Meal induced thermogenesis and appetite : methodological issues and responses to energy restriction

Diet Induced Thermogenesis (DIT) is the energy expended consequent to meal consumption, and reflects the energy required for the processing and digestion of food consumed throughout each day. Although DIT is the total energy expended across a day in digestive processes to a number of meals, most studies measure thermogenesis in response to a single meal (Meal Induced Thermogenesis: MIT) as a representation of an individual’s thermogenic response to acute food ingestion. As a component of energy expenditure, DIT may have a contributing role in weight gain and weight loss. While the evidence is inconsistent, research has tended to reveal a suppressed MIT response in obese compared to lean individuals, which identifies individuals with an efficient storage of food energy, hence a greater tendency for weight gain. Appetite is another factor regulating body weight through its influence on energy intake. Preliminary research has shown a potential link between MIT and postprandial appetite as both are responses to food ingestion and have a similar response dependent upon the macronutrient content of food. There is a growing interest in understanding how both MIT and appetite are modified with changes in diet, activity levels and body size. However, the findings from MIT research have been highly inconsistent, potentially due to the vastly divergent protocols used for its measurement. Therefore, the main theme of this thesis was firstly, to address some of the methodological issues associated with measuring MIT. Additionally this thesis aimed to measure postprandial appetite simultaneously to MIT to test for any relationships between these meal-induced variables and to assess changes that occur in MIT and postprandial appetite during periods of energy restriction (ER) and following weight loss. Two separate studies were conducted to achieve these aims. Based on the increasing prevalence of obesity, it is important to develop accurate methodologies for measuring the components potentially contributing to its development and to understand the variability within these variables. Therefore, the aim of Study One was to establish a protocol for measuring the thermogenic response to a single test meal (MIT), as a representation of DIT across a day. This was done by determining the reproducibility of MIT with a continuous measurement protocol and determining the effect of measurement duration. The benefit of a fixed resting metabolic rate (RMR), which is a single measure of RMR used to calculate each subsequent measure of MIT, compared to separate baseline RMRs, which are separate measures of RMR measured immediately prior to each MIT test meal to calculate each measure of MIT, was also assessed to determine the method with greater reproducibility. Subsidiary aims were to measure postprandial appetite simultaneously to MIT, to determine its reproducibility between days and to assess potential relationships between these two variables. Ten healthy individuals (5 males, 5 females, age = 30.2 ± 7.6 years, BMI = 22.3 ± 1.9 kg/m2, %Fat Mass = 27.6 ± 5.9%) undertook three testing sessions within a 1-4 week time period. During the first visit, participants had their body composition measured using DXA for descriptive purposes, then had an initial 30-minute measure of RMR to familiarise them with the testing and to be used as a fixed baseline for calculating MIT. During the second and third testing sessions, MIT was measured. Measures of RMR and MIT were undertaken using a metabolic cart with a ventilated hood to measure energy expenditure via indirect calorimetry with participants in a semi-reclined position. The procedure on each MIT test day was: 1) a baseline RMR measured for 30 minutes, 2) a 15-minute break in the measure to consume a standard 576 kcal breakfast (54.3% CHO, 14.3% PRO, 31.4% FAT), comprising muesli, milk toast, butter, jam and juice, and 3) six hours of measuring MIT with two, ten-minute breaks at 3 and 4.5 hours for participants to visit the bathroom. On the MIT test days, pre and post breakfast then at 45-minute intervals, participants rated their subjective appetite, alertness and comfort on visual analogue scales (VAS). Prior to each test, participants were required to be fasted for 12 hours, and have undertaken no high intensity physical activity for the previous 48 hours. Despite no significant group changes in the MIT response between days, individual variability was high with an average between-day CV of 33%, which was not significantly improved by the use of a fixed RMR to 31%. The 95% limits of agreements which ranged from 9.9% of energy intake (%EI) to -10.7%EI with the baseline RMRs and between 9.6%EI to -12.4%EI with the fixed RMR, indicated very large changes relative to the size of the average MIT response (MIT 1: 8.4%EI, 13.3%EI; MIT 2: 8.8%EI, 14.7%EI; baseline and fixed RMRs respectively). After just three hours, the between-day CV with the baseline RMR was 26%, which may indicate an enhanced MIT reproducibility with shorter measurement durations. On average, 76, 89, and 96% of the six-hour MIT response was completed within three, four and five hours, respectively. Strong correlations were found between MIT at each of these time points and the total six-hour MIT (range for correlations r = 0.990 to 0.998; P < 0.01). The reproducibility of the proportion of the six-hour MIT completed at 3, 4 and 5 hours was reproducible (between-day CVs ≤ 8.5%). This indicated the suitability to use shorter durations on repeated occasions and a similar percent of the total response to be completed. There was a lack of strong evidence of any relationship between the magnitude of the MIT response and subjective postprandial appetite. Given a six-hour protocol places a considerable burden on participants, these results suggests that a post-meal measurement period of only three hours is sufficient to produce valid information on the metabolic response to a meal. However while there was no mean change in MIT between test days, individual variability was large. Further research is required to better understand which factors best explain the between-day variability in this physiological measure. With such a high prevalence of obesity, dieting has become a necessity to reduce body weight. However, during periods of ER, metabolic and appetite adaptations can occur which may impede weight loss. Understanding how metabolic and appetite factors change during ER and weight loss is important for designing optimal weight loss protocols. The purpose of Study Two was to measure the changes in the MIT response and subjective postprandial appetite during either continuous (CONT) or intermittent (INT) ER and following post diet energy balance (post-diet EB). Thirty-six obese male participants were randomly assigned to either the CONT (Age = 38.6 ± 7.0 years, weight = 109.8 ± 9.2 kg, % fat mass = 38.2 ± 5.2%) or INT diet groups (Age = 39.1 ± 9.1 years, weight = 107.1 ± 12.5 kg, % fat mass = 39.6 ± 6.8%). The study was divided into three phases: a four-week baseline (BL) phase where participants were provided with a diet to maintain body weight, an ER phase lasting either 16 (CONT) or 30 (INT) weeks, where participants were provided with a diet which supplied 67% of their energy balance requirements to induce weight loss and an eight-week post-diet EB phase, providing a diet to maintain body weight post weight loss. The INT ER phase was delivered as eight, two-week blocks of ER interspersed with two-week blocks designed to achieve weight maintenance. Energy requirements for each phase were predicted based on measured RMR, and adjusted throughout the study to account for changes in RMR. All participants completed MIT and appetite tests during BL and the ER phase. Nine CONT and 15 INT participants completed the post-diet EB MIT and 14 INT and 15 CONT participants completed the post-diet EB appetite tests. The MIT test day protocol was as follows: 1) a baseline RMR measured for 30 minutes, 2) a 15-minute break in the measure to consume a standard breakfast meal (874 kcal, 53.3% CHO, 14.5% PRO, 32.2% FAT), and 3) three hours of measuring MIT. MIT was calculated as the energy expenditure above the pre-meal RMR. Appetite test days were undertaken on a separate day using the same 576 kcal breakfast used in Study One. VAS were used to assess appetite pre and post breakfast, at one hour post breakfast then a further three times at 45-minute intervals. Appetite ratings were calculated for hunger and fullness as both the intra-meal change in appetite and the AUC. The three-hour MIT response at BL, ER and post-diet EB respectively were 5.4 ± 1.4%EI, 5.1 ± 1.3%EI and 5.0 ± 0.8%EI for the CONT group and 4.4 ± 1.0%EI, 4.7 ± 1.0%EI and 4.8 ± 0.8%EI for the INT group. Compared to BL, neither group had significant changes in their MIT response during ER or post-diet EB. There were no significant time by group interactions (p = 0.17) indicating a similar response to ER and post-diet EB in both groups. Contrary to what was hypothesised, there was a significant increase in postprandial AUC fullness in response to ER in both groups (p < 0.05). However, there were no significant changes in any of the other postprandial hunger or fullness variables. Despite no changes in MIT in both the CONT or INT group in response to ER or post-diet EB and only a minor increase in postprandial AUC fullness, the individual changes in MIT and postprandial appetite in response to ER were large. However those with the greatest MIT changes did not have the greatest changes in postprandial appetite. This study shows that postprandial appetite and MIT are unlikely to be altered during ER and are unlikely to hinder weight loss. Additionally, there were no changes in MIT in response to weight loss, indicating that body weight did not influence the magnitude of the MIT response. There were large individual changes in both variables, however further research is required to determine whether these changes were real compensatory changes to ER or simply between-day variation. Overall, the results of this thesis add to the current literature by showing the large variability of continuous MIT measurements, which make it difficult to compare MIT between groups and in response to diet interventions. This thesis was able to provide evidence to suggest that shorter measures may provide equally valid information about the total MIT response and can therefore be utilised in future research in order to reduce the burden of long measurements durations. This thesis indicates that MIT and postprandial subjective appetite are most likely independent of each other. This thesis also shows that, on average, energy restriction was not associated with compensatory changes in MIT and postprandial appetite that would have impeded weight loss. However, the large inter-individual variability supports the need to examine individual responses in more detail.

College, shared house, or home? The impact of living situation on university students’ drinking

University students are recognised as a heavy drinking group who are at risk of both short and long term harms from their alcohol consumption. This paper explores the social dynamics of drinking and the key differences between three core groups of university students – those who live at home, those living in college and those who live independently. We draw on a large scale survey of Australian university students on alcohol consumption and harm minimisation and extensive qualitative individual and focus group interviews with university students in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Our data suggests that living at home supports safer drinking in comparison to the less regulated college context or living independently in shared households.

Predicate encryption with various properties

Predicate encryption (PE) is a new primitive which supports exible control over access to encrypted data. In PE schemes, users' decryption keys are associated with predicates f and ciphertexts encode attributes a that are specified during the encryption procedure. A user can successfully decrypt if and only if f(a) = 1. In this thesis, we will investigate several properties that are crucial to PE. We focus on expressiveness of PE, Revocable PE and Hierarchical PE (HPE) with forward security. For all proposed systems, we provide a security model and analysis using the widely accepted computational complexity approach. Our first contribution is to explore the expressiveness of PE. Existing PE supports a wide class of predicates such as conjunctions of equality, comparison and subset queries, disjunctions of equality queries, and more generally, arbitrary combinations of conjunctive and disjunctive equality queries. We advance PE to evaluate more expressive predicates, e.g., disjunctive comparison or disjunctive subset queries. Such expressiveness is achieved at the cost of computational and space overhead. To improve the performance, we appropriately revise the PE to reduce the computational and space cost. Furthermore, we propose a heuristic method to reduce disjunctions in the predicates. Our schemes are proved in the standard model. We then introduce the concept of Revocable Predicate Encryption (RPE), which extends the previous PE setting with revocation support: private keys can be used to decrypt an RPE ciphertext only if they match the decryption policy (defined via attributes encoded into the ciphertext and predicates associated with private keys) and were not revoked by the time the ciphertext was created. We propose two RPE schemes. Our first scheme, termed Attribute- Hiding RPE (AH-RPE), offers attribute-hiding, which is the standard PE property. Our second scheme, termed Full-Hiding RPE (FH-RPE), offers even stronger privacy guarantees, i.e., apart from possessing the Attribute-Hiding property, the scheme also ensures that no information about revoked users is leaked from a given ciphertext. The proposed schemes are also proved to be secure under well established assumptions in the standard model. Secrecy of decryption keys is an important pre-requisite for security of (H)PE and compromised private keys must be immediately replaced. The notion of Forward Security (FS) reduces damage from compromised keys by guaranteeing confidentiality of messages that were encrypted prior to the compromise event. We present the first Forward-Secure Hierarchical Predicate Encryption (FS-HPE) that is proved secure in the standard model. Our FS-HPE scheme offers some desirable properties: time-independent delegation of predicates (to support dynamic behavior for delegation of decrypting rights to new users), local update for users' private keys (i.e., no master authority needs to be contacted), forward security, and the scheme's encryption process does not require knowledge of predicates at any level including when those predicates join the hierarchy.

Diversity and Differentiation

New ways of working are being embraced by early childhood educators as they cope with demands from national reforms and changing communities. While reformers are pressing for social equity and improved outcomes for families and children, communities are diverging in terms of ethnicity, culture, language and socioeconomic status. As a consequence, early childhood educators are being challenged to expand their existing repertoire of practices in order to more effectively provide quality learning experiences for every child in their care. Practice enhancement and differentiated pedagogy are needed to address the additional needs of an increasing number of diverse learners. Community expectations are particularly focused on better educational supports for children in five cluster areas: • Culturally diverse and Indigenous backgrounds • ‘at risk’ because of socio-economic and abuse conditions • Communicative, emotional and behavioural disorders • Disabilities and learning difficulties and • Recognised gifts and talents This chapter focuses on some everyday ractices that can be used strategically to better support all children, including those with additional educational needs. All practices are well supported in the literature and are substantiated by either research findings or strong, socially determined values. They also very ‘doable’ and sustainable in today’s dynamic and multifaceted early childhood settings. Seven keys practices will be introduced, together with examples of how they can be applied to both enhance the learning of individual children and to strengthen a sense of group belonging. The practices are: • Having positive beliefs about all children • Learning about each child • Building meaningful relationships around the child • Creating supportive learning environments for the child • Providing engaging learning experiences for the child • Differentiating instruction for the child • Using child progress data to improve learning and teaching

Where do entrepreneurial skills come from?

Applying Lazear's jack-of-all-trades theory, we investigate the formation of entrepreneurial skills in two data sets on innovative new firms. Our results suggest that traditional human capital indicators individually have little or no influence on entrepreneurial skills. However, consistent with Lazear's theory, those entrepreneurs who exhibit a varied set of work experience have higher entrepreneurial skills relevant for starting and growing a firm. This supports the notion that a varied set of work experiences rather than depth of any particular type of experience or education is important for the development of entrepreneurial skills.

Communication and the casualisation of nursing : a critical ethnography

The contemporary working environment is being rapidly reshaped by technological, industrial and political forces. Increased global competitiveness and an emphasis on productivity have led to the appearance of alternative methods of employment, such as part-time, casual and itinerant work, allowing greater flexibility. This allows for the development of a core permanent staff and the simultaneous utilisation of casual staff according to business needs. Flexible workers across industries are generally referred to as the non-standard workforce and full-time permanent workers as the standard workforce. Even though labour flexibility favours the employer, increased opportunity for flexible work has been embraced by women for many reasons, including the gender struggle for greater economic independence and social equality. Consequently, the largely female nursing industry, both nationally and internationally, has been caught up in this wave of change. This ageing workforce has been at the forefront of the push for flexibility with recent figures showing almost half the nursing workforce is employed in non-standard capacity. In part, this has allowed women to fulfil caring roles outside their work, to ease off nearing retirement and to supplement the family income. More significantly, however, flexibility has developed as an economic management initiative, as a strategy for cost constraint. The result has been the development of a dual workforce and as suggested by Pocock, Buchanan and Campbell (2004), associated deep-seated resentment and the marginalisation of part-time and casual workers by their full-time colleagues and managers. Additionally, as nursing currently faces serious recruitment and retention problems there is urgent need to understand the factors which are underlying present discontent in the nursing profession. There is an identified gap in nursing knowledge surrounding the issues relating to recruitment and retention. Communication involves speaking, listening, reading and writing and is an interactive process which is central to the lives of humans. Workplace communication refers to human interaction, information technology, and multimedia and print. It is the means to relationship building between workers, management, and their external environment and is critical to organisational effectiveness. Communication and language are integral to nursing performance (Hall, 2005), in twenty-four hour service however increasing fragmentation due to part-time and casual work in the nursing industry means that effective communication management has become increasingly difficult. More broadly it is known that disruption to communication systems impacts negatively on consumer outcomes. Because of this gap in understanding how nurses view their contemporary nursing world, an interpretative ethnographic study which progressed to a critical ethnographic study, based on the conceptual framework of constructionism and interpretativism was used. The study site was a division within an acute health care facility, and the relationship between increasing casualisation of the nursing workforce and the experiences of communication of standard and non-standard nurses was explored. For this study, full-time standard nurses were those employed to work in a specific unit for forty hours per week. Non-standard nurses were those employed part-time in specific units or those nurses employed to work as relief pool nurses for shift short falls where needed. Nurses employed by external agencies, but required to fill in for shifts at the facility were excluded from this research. This study involved an analysis of observational, interview and focus group data of standard and non-standard nurses within this facility. Three analytical findings - the organisation of nursing work; constructing the casual nurse as other; and the function of space, situate communication within a broader discussion about non-standard work and organisational culture. The study results suggest that a significant culture of marginalisation exists for nurses who work in a non-standard capacity and that this affects communication for nurses and has implications for the quality of patient care. The discussion draws on the seven elements of marginalisation described by Hall, Stephen and Melius (1994). The arguments propose that these elements underpin a culture which supports remnants of the historically gendered stereotype "the good nurse" and these cultural values contribute to practices and behaviour which marginalise all nurses, particularly those who work less than full-time. Gender inequality is argued to be at the heart of marginalising practices because of long standing subordination of nurses by the powerful medical profession, paralleling historical subordination of women in society. This has denied nurses adequate representation and voice in decision making. The new knowledge emanating from this study extends current knowledge of factors surrounding recruitment and retention and as such contributes to an understanding of the current and complex nursing environment.